


Things I'm Not Writing, or, The One Where...

by Lanna Michaels (lannamichaels)



Series: Petya 'verse - All Petya Vorkosigan Fics [37]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Alternate Universe, Comment Fic, It all made sense at the time, Meta, Not!Fic, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-28
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:51:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/486381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lannamichaels/pseuds/Lanna%20Michaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not!Fic journal entries and comments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Barrayar High School AU.

**Author's Note:**

> An attempt to consolidate "Things I'm not writing" and "the one where..." rambling entries and comments.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/67394.html

  


...a Barrayar High School AU.

Bear with me.

So, Cordelia Naismith is a science teacher who used to work at the Betan Prep Academy, but decided to change (the school nurse misusing prescription drugs totally had nothing to do with it, honest). So, she starts at Barrayaran School, possibly formerly a military school that hasn't been for forty years, but everyone keeps forgetting that and they still have formal uniforms and parades and such.

The principal, Ezar Vorbarra, is a sly old man whose family has been running the school for so long no one really remembers that they haven't always been. His son, Serg, is Not Spoken Of; he was an alum of the school, but They Do Not Speak Of It and especially not about those shenanigans involving the Spanish-language school down the road. Mr. Negri is the day to day guy and scares the shit out of everyone; everyone knows he has his eyes everywhere. Do not piss him off or your transcripts will never get sent in the college application process.

Aral Vorkosigan is the genial gym and art teacher. He complains that Ezar and Negri like to call him Captain when they're tweaking him, because Aral was captain of the judo team when he was at school and he's coached it to some local or state championship. They are constantly gearing up for The Big Match. But Aral's passion is art and he is Tragically Misunderstood as an artist. Woe.

His cousin, Padma Vorpatril, teaches civics and all things government and politics and AP History and such, and is also the sponsor and coordinator of the debate team and fields the model UN team. It's widely rumored that he's only there as nepotism. He's big and burly and likes to joke around and he does demonstrations in judo class with Aral when Aral's recruiting new members and always manages to lose spectacularly to make Aral look good. Certain members of the faculty and certain members of the student body take bets on how he can manage to lose, as comicly as possible, this year. Padma has never gotten over the urge to be the class clown, even though he's now standing in front of the class instead of heckling from the back.

Padma's wife, Alys, teaches French and Russian. She started the fashion club when she was a student and has kept up with it and now she's the faculty advisor. Some of the students keep trying out for fashion schools and some of them get in, but the whole club revolves around the regular showings of Project Runway and otherwise after school, with bonus popcorn. The major achievement of the fashion club every year is the fake-Midsummer-just-before-graduation pagent, where they get to show off all the strange and interesting things they did. Alys is usually wearing something that came out of the club, even if it's just a pin. Alys and Padma were in school together and had many Epic Romance moments... with other people. The fact that they ended up getting married is a constant source of amusement for everyone else from their class.

Cordelia is also getting to do health class. They didn't have a teacher last year, and everyone said "oh, Alys, you're a woman, we mean, a mother, you should do it", and Alys was not amused, and she got all the teachers in a room, passed around a couple pictures of her in labor from her Epic Labor With Ivan, and then handed out condoms, and said "so, I'll be doing that in class, then?". Aral's ex-wife came in to do the sex ed stuff instead. (Aral's divorce proceedings were long and rough. They are also Not Spoken Of. Aral eventually tells Cordelia, "it all started when she found me in bed with someone else." "Could be worse, could have been her sister." "Well, no. It was her brother.")

Cordelia is a little surprised by how many of the teachers are former students. She bonds quickly with the nerdy computer teacher, Simon Illyan, who jokes self-depricatingly that he's a cyborg. He has a very good memory, he explains, and sometimes it can freak people out, but Negri was very adament that it was A Feature Not A Bug. He is also involved in a poly relationship with Alys and Padma. But Cordelia just came from Beta and so she's used to things like this and she doesn't think there's anything weird about it and of course it's all obvious once you think about it.

Cordelia spends a year there, but then leaves, because these people are all Really Weird.  



	2. Everybody Lives!Petya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted in comments http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/76568.html

[](http://margrave.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**margrave**](http://margrave.dreamwidth.org/) : As for request - um, more Vorkosigan? Aral's take on his son's LONG m/m courtship? It is hard to think because I'd read ANYTHING you write.

* * *

* * *

And Aral's reaction, heh. Funny you should say that, because I have been, the last few days, BEEN DISTRACTED WITH ARAL'S DISAPPROVAL. Like, it's just taken as read that if Guy actually did take Petya up on the offer from the Regency? Would have been a huge fucking disaster, politically, relationshipally it would not have survived. Buuuuut, suddenly they're in an Everybody Lives World, with Padma and Kareen, and so Petya comes back on his first leave and is all hanging out with Padma and spending most of his time with him and Alys and their Many Children (three or four by this point, they're big fans of uterine replicators) and other relatives, and conspicuously just Having Other Priorities. And he and Aral get into these huge fights, and Aral calls him on the gay thing, and this might actually be the first time that Aral acknowledges to Petya's face that he *knows* about it, and Petya has this moment of going "okay, we have just untangled our expectations, and I cannot fucking deal with this, I cannot deal with Regent, Father, *and* commanding officer, enough already", and then FUCKING RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION. I KNOW. So he's sulking and other stuff and working on different ways to spin this as being, no, really, good for the district and all, and Piotr's not entirely buying it, and then Petya realizes that Guy's also on leave! So he goes to visit! And Guy introduces him to the family! And it's all Very Tentative, and Petya's all Not Speaking To His Father, which is politically problematic, and Padma's trying to hold his family together, and grumbling about Stubborn Vorkosigans And Their Stubborn Sense Of Honor, and eventually, Petya and Guy start Striking Up A Friendship, Padma is going "...oh, fuck it, if he makes you happy, I guess we might be able to make this work, you can stay with me when, I mean if, your father or grandfather throws you out for being completely scandalous.", Guy ends up, when his leave is over, reporting to HQ and being called before Simon, and then, after some back and forth, is told that, guess what, I've accepted your resignation, here it is, sign it and get out, and btw, good luck, but don't tell Aral I said that. And Petya is making all of these paranoid plans for what happens if it all goes to hell, Aral is having another ones of those moment of "seriously, when did my baby start talking back to me and deciding I'm the enemy?", and Piotr is ENRAGED I TELL YOU that Petya managed to time this all to when it would be really politically horrible if his family was publicly upset with him, so they're forced to go along with it in public, while having none of it in private, and Petya and Guy start formally dating, and Guy is telling his family, "I know it kinda sucks, but it's totally worth it", and Gregor is all "Uncle Petya is doing what?...cool!" and Kareen goes "great, this will finally stop all the rumors that Petya wants to marry me", and it's all this total chaos AND CORDELIA IS LAUGHING HER HEAD OFF, BTW.

 

...But un the canon verse, I don't really have much more than Aral going "...an Allegre?" and Petya going "...a Betan?" "Well, so long as you're happy." SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.

* * *

And Aral and Petya! I stick them in a room together in my head and, half the time, Petya is All Polite And Formal, and the other half he's going "WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME WHY AM I STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH?!", and occasionally Cordelia is tapping Aral on the shoulder and saying, "I think your problem is that you keep talking to him as a superior officer and he answers you as your son, and you get upset, and then when you talk to him as his father, and he talks back as a junior officer, and then you get upset. YOU MIGHT WANT TO STRAIGHTEN THIS OUT. MAYBE CUE CARDS OR SOMETHING. OR NAMETAGS."

And Simon is totally secretly laughing his head off and loving every minute of it. He, um, occasionally likes to remind people that HE IS ACTUALLY A PROLE KTHXBYE. So when they're all in drama over Petya fucking a prole, HELLO SIMON ILLYAN STANDING RIGHT HERE.

And Aral and Piotr are on the same side in this, which, trust me, horrifies them both. ;) I think it might even help them resolve the problems in their relationship, the way they can go "...I may have a mutie son, and be completely disobedient, but let's complain about Petya for a change and bond over that." Aral's not a fan of arranged marriages or anything, but, still, Petya, you are Expected to do certain things, and since when do you not care about that? And Petya goes "hey, remember how I spent the last six years on a different planet? GUESS WHAT. I PAID ATTENTION. ...and I'll let you meet Guy if you promise not to try to scare him. c'mon, his parents are perfectly kind to me, even though they clearly hate my Vor guts. ARE YOU REALLY LESS COURTEOUS THAN PROLES????" ;)

And Alys and Cordelia are eating popcorn, and Padma eventually drops in to either pull Aral and Petya away from each other's necks, or have his own popcorn. ;) And Gregor and Ivan and Miles and Sonia and the other Vorpatril kids are probably being highly entertained as well by the shenanigans, and commiserating with each other over adults being stupid.


	3. Guerilla!Aral fighting for the Komarrans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally in http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/92012.html

....The AU Where Ges And Serg Take Over And Ges Drops Aral On Komarr As A Cool And Unusual Punishment And So Of Course Aral Decides To Guerilla Fight On The Komarrans Side Because If There's One Thing He Knows How To Do It's Be A Guerilla has been playing in my head for a while and with a vengeance the last few days. What happens is: Padma eventually gets sent to Komarr to negotiate a deal and ends up doing the Barrayaran form of unconditional surrender (which, of course, has conditions). And Padma and Aral lol at each other a bit with straight faces after Aral gives Padma all of the Komarrans conditions and Padma goes "yeah, fine, sure" and then Padma's like "okay, the Emperor has two" and Aral says to the Komarrans "take it, you are never going to get better than unconditional surrender" and Galen's like, you people don't understand unconditional, do you? Because, no, they don't. But they take it anyway.)


	4. Ezar/Aral arranged marriage crackfic.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/669744.html . Continues in comments.

  


Ezar/Aral arranged marriage crackfic.

WTF, my brain.

Okay, so there are a few ways this could go, from seriously fucking absurd to playing it completely straight. It's not even that I like real regency romances, it's probably that regency AUs are a fun genre to read.

So Ezar Vorbarra's on the throne and his wife just died and he may or may not have little Serg around, but even still, suddenly he's looking very illegitimate monarch due to those however many people at this point who have a better claim on the throne. Enter the solution in the form of Lieutenant Aral Vorkosigan, who is willing to put up with this bullshit if only because he has nothing else to do with his life, fuck it all, and if Piotr's going to sell him to the highest bidder again, at least he's being honest about it.

Or we have the really earnest one where Aral is such a scandalous choice, what with him being rumored to have killed his wife, and Ezar knows he shouldn't let his heart take control, but he can't help his emotions, he must tell Aral how ardently he admires and loves him. And Aral is like omgwtfwhy, and Piotr is going, Ezar, I'm going to throw you through a wall, and Ezar's like, my poor heart, I can't help it.

Or the one where it's really straight, where Piotr and Ezar decided to betroth Aral to Ezar during the early days of the war, and now Aral's an adult and so it's all come due, and it's time for Aral to do his duty for king and country, except that he has fallen in love, in love!, with his best friend, Ges. And their love is doomed! Doomed! But then Ges dies. :( And after some time, Ezar decides to start wooing Aral and eventually wins him over. But then Ges comes back, it was all such a terrible misunderstanding. There are shenanigans.

Or this was all in play even before the war, and then the war happened and Ezar married Yuri's sister and Piotr was okay with that, because things happen in war, but he's never let Ezar forget it, so when Ezar's wife dies, Piotr says, "oh, yay, I don't have to keep negotiating with Count Vorrutyer" and basically makes sure Ezar/Aral happens.

Or Aral's the one gunning for it, because Ambition, and sweeps Ezar off of his feet and charms him and is all charisma at him and then totally wins and is gleeful about it, and Padma is just facepalming all over the place, because Aral, your hardon for power is showing.

And there are totally other ways of making this happen, too.

My brain is a strange place to live.  



	5. Dueling!Petya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted in comments http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/691542.html

[](http://sylleptic.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sylleptic**](http://sylleptic.dreamwidth.org/) : Tell me something about Petya and Gregor?

* * *

* * *

Petya and Gregor... HERE HAVE TWO AUS.

So, okay, Serg? Had a thing about Petya (and Padma). Basically, his two cousins? They got the life he wanted. Serg Vorbarra is not a man with a lot of choices in his life. He hates the Vor and the Counts and the crumbling institutions and he wants real reforms, not this phony crap his father's trying. He'd kill all the Counts if he could. Wastes of space, all of them. He's Serg Vorbarra, he can choose his own advisors and councils, thanks.

But, anyway, Petya. Serg has gotten it into his head that Petya's sleeping with Kareen. So he challenges him to a duel. Petya refuses. He does it again. Petya refuses. He does it a third time. Petya goes "holy fuck, he wants to murder me and get away with it. And he's going to keep doing this until he succeeds." Ezar calls Petya to him, basically says, "kill him, make it look like an accident". 

And so Petya agrees to the duel and the next day at dawn, his sword "slips". Badly. At the worst moment. And then ImpSec finally bursts in and arrests the lot of them, including Serg's armsmen, because Dueling Is Illegal Dammit.

And there proceeds to be several months of serious politicking on all sides, because Petya's basically a regicide "by accident", and it's not like he had a choice, Serg ordered him to duel him, but he still killed him, and Petya's hanging out in an ImpSec jail, basically catching up on his reading, assuming he's going to be executed, seeing as how Ezar didn't tell him he could expect an Imperial pardon, and Petya did technically volunteer for this. And he's okay with it, he knew what he was getting into. It's all dramatic and martyrish and all, very Vorkosigan.

Piotr and Padma both visit him to update him on it, because Piotr, of course, is fighting like mad (Aral is off with his fleet and is on his way back, under suspicion of collusion, etc, the politicals are angry), and Padma is giving him updates and all. And at no point does Petya admit to either of them that Ezar told him to do it, but, uh, they figured that part out. ;) Piotr's all angry that if Ezar killed him, it would be an epic Vor fail, since fealty and liege relationships and being responsible for your orders and all that.

He finally gets an Imperial Pardon, essentially because the galactic community calls epic foul, and also the Betans pull citizenship for Petya out of their collective diplomatic asses. Ezar's choices were basically, 1) pardon him, 2) kill him out right, 3) put him on trial. And it couldn't be a quick secret military trial because the Betans and all were going "oh hi transparency" and also Petya's at this point either still in prep school or just started the Academy, so either way, calling this a military matter is pushing it. And it can't be in the counts, because then it's all Piotr saying "dammit, Ezar, *do not make me do this*", because he totally would fuck everything up and there would be drama and such, *and all of it in public*. 

So Ezar could either have him killed or pardon him. After long, long deliberations, it's a pardon. But Petya gets kicked out of Vorbarr Sultana, and, as a guy who killed the son of his liege lord, is really not allowed around Gregor. At all. Ever.

Which leads us to Gregor's twentieth birthday. Somebody else was Regent, probably Padma or Rulf or whoever. And this is a Gregor who is not close with the Vorkosigans *at all*, because Count Vorkosigan's grandson killed his father, even if he did have very good reason and did get pardoned.

And Petya's been having to get Imperial approval to visit the capital, and can only really do it if he has an Imperial order. Gregor sees Petya basically only when he orders it, like for oaths stuff, and he's not all that interested in it.

But, he wonders, why the hell is his mother and Uncle Padma and everyone still *friends* with the guy who killed his father? This starts to bother him. It was an illegal duel! Yes, his father ordered it, but that still didn't mean Petya had to kill him.

So eventually Gregor asks Padma, who sort of freezes and talks around telling him that, uh, the reason Petya killed your father? Is because your grandfather told him to. Petya was an assassin, not some cold blooded murderer and oath breaker.

Cue Gregor summoning Petya and talking to him for the first time and trying to get the story out of him. And Petya is *terrified*. And tells him, because, yes, he's not allowed to tell anyone, but since he's not getting out of here without disobeying an Emperor, he'd rather obey the Emperor that still has the power to execute him, not the one who's dead.


	6. Surprise!Lord Regent!Petya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted in comments http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/691542.html
> 
> (Part 2)

[](http://sylleptic.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sylleptic**](http://sylleptic.dreamwidth.org/) : Tell me something about Petya and Gregor?

* * *

* * *

Okay, and the other one, which is: fucking hell, someone killed Aral.

Aral is assassinated a few years into the Regency. Petya gets called home from Earth as fast as you can. He spends the entire time corresponding wildly back and forth, trying to find out what happened.

He arrives back home to find the place in a state of very escalated tension. Piotr's in the hospital (heart attack) and Petya goes there first, finds out what's going on. Petya assumes he's basically on planet to make a Huge, Public Show Of Support for whoever the new Regent is.

The problem is, no one can agree on who the new Regent should be. Very, very tense all around.

Petya goes back to Vorkosigan House and talks with Cordelia, who tells him she's going to Beta Colony. Petya says "okay, when are you coming back?" There's a beat. Then: "Oh, I see." He is fighting tears and very quickly jots off a letter saying that Cordelia has full and sole custody of Miles. Cordelia and Miles go on the next ship. Petya lies to everyone and tells them that he understands and supports it, and Miles would have better care on Beta and all that. In reality, this is yet another abandonment, and he stays angry about it for a while. (Gregor actually does understand and when Cordelia comes back to his twentieth, tells her he understands, his mother tried to save him, too.)

Anyway, Timmy Vorinnis goes to him and says "congrats, it's you." Petya goes, "are you out of your mind, I'm *twenty-six* and a *Lieutenant*." But that's apparently a plus, because everyone thinks they can control him, and he's completely a novice to government. He's been a player in the social scene since he was about fourteen, because the Vor start 'em early, but he's never actually run anything in his life by himself. And he's the Regent's son, and we are all about lineage.

Petya goes "the fuck we're doing this." They end up with a Regency council, all of the big players involved, including the main power on the other side and was likely to break away and cause a war. There is friction and tension and all of that, but they manage to balance the power for ten years, long enough for Gregor to turn 20.

Petya is, uh, not all that interested in Gregor being A Real Boy. He vetoes the plan of sending Gregor to the prep school, telling the General Staff that it's a luxury they can't afford. "What's a cadet doing at twenty? *I* sure remember. Gregor will need to be commanding the entire army, not marching around like an ensign. It's a useless waste of time, and we can't waste his time." So Gregor never actually goes to school, he always has tutors and the like.

Also, because Petya could not care about how old the Emperor is, Gregor is now in charge of every meeting. In name only at first, of course, but Petya aggressively pushes to have Gregor actually being the one to be his own Regent, essentially. Petya signs everything, but the idea is, the day after Gregor's twentieth should be exactly the same as the day before it, except with Petya somewhere else. It should be a seamless transition of power.

Because Petya's here with one job: the day after Gregor's twentieth birthday, the Emperor of Barrayar better damn well be Gregor Vorbarra and no one else. And he'll sacrifice Gregor's childhood to get him there.

The night Gregor turns nineteen, Petya sits him down and says, "and now we're going to transition me out of everything", and this is basically Petya drunk out of his mind rambling at Gregor and *freaking Gregor out*, and Petya's trying to reassure Gregor, don't worry, he'll always be there for him, except that the day after Gregor's twentieth, Petya's going to head back to his district for a while until Gregor says he's ready politically for him to come back. And Petya's all "okay, so you need more advisors ,get some your own age, be careful of flatters, make sure you have people around you who disagree with you because it helps you be sure if you actually think something or not, don't worry about getting rid of anyone on the Regency Council, it was a glued together mess from the start anyway, I totally understand if you never want me to come back from the district and that's okay with me", etc.

Petya wakes up the next morning and realizes, oh holy shit, We Never Told Him.

Because Petya figured out Escobar. In the Real Verse, it took him about ten years and he had suspicions. In this one, he pinned Timmy Vorinnis in place before he agreed to *anything* and said, "there is no way I am doing this without knowing exactly what happened at Escobar, tell me." So Timmy told him as the price of Petya taking the Regency. And they agreed they would tell Gregor when he asked.

And now Gregor's nineteen and He Never Asked.

So they tell him and Gregor has a bigger freak out.

Oh, and in all of this time? Petya's married to Alys and he's adopted Ivan as his heir. Padma's will gave Alys custody of Ivan, but Padma's will was the sort of thing that needed to hold up even if half the people were dead. So if Alys can't do it, Petya gets Ivan, and if Petya ever marries Alys, he *has to* adopt Ivan as his heir. This was a favor from Padma to Petya, because any situation where Petya and Alys might have to get married, having a ready-made heir would be helpful, and this way it forces Petya to do it, so people can't argue or complain.

Petya and Alys have a bunch of kids, the first two are daughters, the oldest is Therese Olivia (Terri) and she is the reason Petya pressures Gregor to open the academy to women. Well, not her exactly, she didn't want it, but she joked about wanting to go to the Academy, and Petya realized that his younger daughters might actually want to. Terri's not allowed to get married until she has a university degree, and Petya is pretty aggressive that she's going to marry whoever she wants to (he has nightmares about Therese Vorkosigan and forced marriages) and tells her flat out that there is not a marriage she can imagine that he can't turn to his political gain. So he supports her with anyone, but *she's* the one who's going to have to tell her mother. ;)

And Ivan and Gregor are pretty close, and so Gregor talks to Ivan and freaks out at him about Petya being totally okay with just walking away from him the day he turns twenty. And Ivan goes, "duh, if he weren't so vocal about wanting to get back to dealing with the district and how it was going to take up ALL OF THE TIME, everyone would accuse him of staging a coup. Don't take it personally, he's not just walking away, he'll be right there if you need him."

Oh, and Miles! Miles has spent his life on Beta Colony, but he has to come back for Gregor's twentieth, because otherwise, he's an unsworn Vor lord, and if he's going to be Vor, he's going to have to do this. So Miles comes back and looks around. And he basically has to make the decision of if he wants to have much to do with Barrayar and his Barrayaran relatives and nieces and nephews and such.

Eventually he decides that, yes, he wants to. So he goes to University of Vorbarr Sultana. THERE IS MUCH DRAMA.

* * *

Miles is so very, very, very Betan. With the earrings and innuendo and everything. And despite everyone telling him, "hey, this is Barrayar, you have bodyguards, and don't you remember, you had one from the actual day you were born", it doesn't really get through to him. So one day he sees someone following him. And so he, naturally, ambushes him and starts beating him up.

It's the ImpSec advance man. Who has no idea what else to do, and someone else on the guard duty sounds the alarm, and Ivan is brought over from another part of the campus to say MILES YOU IDIOT. ;) There's much arguing about it all.

This is basically one of the few where Ivan outranks Miles. Another other one is where Padma is adopted by Piotr. Aral names him as his heir because it's convenient and why not. After Cordelia comes back and marries Aral, Padma offers to step aside for Aral's son. Cordelia says, "you mean, there's a way where my son would be free and not have to become Count Vorkosigan?" Padma says, "yes...?" Cordelia says "yay, we'll do it that way!" So even though Miles is the son of the older brother, Ivan's Lord Vorkosigan's heir and so outranks him.


	7. BDSM AU!Padma/Petya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted http://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/695385.html

  
Because there is no such thing as an impossible pairing, merely ones that require you to recreate the universe to make work, I, of course, have managed to create a couple 'verses that are Padma/Petya. Because I could, dammit, because I could.

This is, actually, how I ended up actually writing [that Xav/Piotr snippet](http://archiveofourown.org/works/219766) because ffs my brain.

Anyway.

In not-that-exact-one-but-one-close, Xav takes the throne post-Yuri. Xav and Piotr had a so very, very, very, very completely fucked up dominant/submissive relationship. So very, epically fucked up. The thing is, they both really wanted it, but they both wanted each other to be other people, and they wanted different kinds of relationships (as Piotr puts it, Piotr wanted to be his loyal wolf, while Xav wanted a *goddamn lapdog*. Xav disagrees with this, but only in terminology, not spirit. Xav wanted someone tame, is that too much to ask? Piotr says, in what universe is that answer "no, of course it's not too much"?). But that's not the point right now.

The point is, in this universe, with dominant/submissive being a thing, it's a bit switched from the normal way people write these, because, um, hi, my name is Lanna. Okay, no it's not. Hello, my screen name is Lanna. Better. Submissives are considered to be better disciplined soldiers and basically, if you are a strategist, you are assumed to be a submissive, because they're just better at it. (This causes some annoyances for Aral later on, but I digress. Often.) It's not a strict oh-one-group-is-more-privileged, it's definitely more of one-group-is-more-privileged-here-and-another-there, etc. There are also switches and people who opt out of the entire idea in general, because it's so limiting, why would you want to limit yourself like that?

All dominant/submissive relationships are same-sex, all marriages are opposite-sex. Well, that's the Right And Proper Way to do things, real world results may vary. You have a dominant or submissive, and you have a spouse. You're supposed to have both, and if you only have one, that's being a bit lop-sided. You know.

Dorca was a submissive, but because of the whole idea that the Emperor just can't go around obeying someone else's orders all the time, he had a submissive, not a dominant. This reasoning is complete propaganda, by the way. It was never actually the case. Dorca and Pierre L. S. completely spun that for their advantage a few times, but it some weird repercussions a few generations down the line. (Ivan is submissive and is worried that he's never going to be *allowed* to have a dominant and he better start finding submissives attractive if he ever wants to have that kind of relationship.)

Xav? Serious dominant. But also not a very good one. He never had an official submissive for very long and certainly not anyone who stuck around long enough for him to publicly be all The Emperor's Submissive about it.

Padma's also a dominant, but he's less, um, intense. Okay, no, he's very intense, and very dominant and he has some self-control issues with his dominance. Piotr once had to remind him that when his mind was wandering to sex things, every submissive in the room knew exactly what he was thinking, and probably every dominant as well. Xav used to throw dominance at people, just automatically, and Padma does it some times, and you're really not supposed to do that. Well, dominants in general aren't. When you are Emperor, things are different. Piotr mostly just wants Padma to only do it intentionally, not accidentally. Because Piotr will never not be Piotr.

Anyway, when Padma finds out just how Xav had interacted with submissives and all, he gets kind of pissed off at his dead grandfather for it, and is all "oh my god, he was doing *what*?!!!".

I should back up.

Padma was adopted by Xav and his wife. (This was likely obvious by context, um.) He is raised to basically be Emperor at the drop of a hat. He and Aral are kind of close growing up, but Aral's ten years older, and also Xav and Piotr have all of their issues and such, and also, be careful, because someone might remember that Aral's the oldest surviving grandson. It's a concern. They're close, but there's a distance, because it's necessary for Aral to remember that little baby Padma is going to jump over him birth-order-wise and be his Emperor, and for Padma to not get into any habits of naturally obeying his older cousin.

Xav dies sometime after Padma turns twenty. Padma marries Kareen, who is a dominant. Alys is her submissive. Being the Emperor or Empress's submissive is an actual thing, and with repercussions: if you break up, you are not supposed to ever have another dominant, because it's saying there's someone's authority you answer to instead of the Emperor or Empress. This is why there's always a lot of hedging and waiting before any public acknowledgement; it's really fucking someone over if your relationship crashes and burns two years into it. This is tradition, not law, but no one's eager to be the first one to break tradition.

Aral and his wife get married. They have two kids, Piotr Xav and Pierre Xav. Also known as Petya and Pete. Because Vorkosigans, godfuckingdammit, will reuse names until you don't know who's who, and there's already a Pierre Vorrutyer born right before Pierre Vorkosigan. (This breaks in the next generation, with them outright refusing to keep on going with the naming confusion.) And why not use the same name in two different languages for two different kids? Of course you should, it's only sensible.

Right.

Aral and his wife's relationship is, uh, not much better than it was in canon. Shit happens, they have an epic, epic, epic two year long divorce fight. It is epic. (It would have been shorter if Padma had intervened. He told them that if they ask him to do that, guess what, he will be Imperially confiscating the children.)

(As a SERIOUS aside, oh my god, order what order: Xav introduced an actual line of succession. Aral and his kids are in it. They are junior princes, which is a rank but not a title. Essentially, they can be called on to do stuff in the Emperor's stead and if someone kills all the Vorbarras, Aral's the Emperor. But it's still Lord Vorkosigan, who is a junior prince; if he answers to Prince Aral, they could cut his head off for it.)

Padma does sort-of-end-up confiscating the children. Petya's about five years-ish older than Pete and is already in the prep school. While Aral and his wife (and Piotr, let's not forget Piotr, dear lord) are waging marital war, Padma's invited Petya and Pete to live in the Residence for the duration. Even after the divorce is settled, it's still normal for Petya and Pete to spend school vacations or whatever hanging around the Imperial Residence, playing with Padma and Kareen's kids.

Petya's a submissive and has known he was for basically ever. Except that he assumes he sucks at it completely. He tries to have a relationship with Carl Vorhalas at school, except it's not very good. Carl can't roll him with his dominance and he definitely can't drop him to his knees, so Petya must just suck at this completely. Pete's a dominant, a very cute baby dominant, and is subject to all of Petya's teenage frustrations about Dominants His Age And Why Must They Be Like This, like off-handed asides of "Pete, never ever tell a submissive X." "Okay!" (Petya is a weird, and weirdly protective, big brother. Certain things are universal.)

Petya's class at the Academy is the first one that has proles in it. Xav had instituted Weekly Family Dinners, ostensibly either Because Family Dammit or to keep an eye on everyone and keep them in line, depending on who's asking. Padma has continued them. He told the prep school and then the Academy flat-out that if the Emperor can arrange his schedule for this, then there should be no difficulties whatsoever with a cadet's schedule, don't you agree? So that's all agreed. Petya skips off once a week to the Residence unless he's on a training exercise or would otherwise disrupt the curriculum for him to leave.

The Academy brass assume the reason for the first prole class just happening to have Petya is so Padma can get reports on how it's going from Petya, him being there as a cadet spy. Petya's a little unsure if that's actually Padma's reason for it, and offers to report back. Padma's just "yeah, tell me what you want, but otherwise, don't worry about it." Padma's reasoning was that this makes the class rankings much more competitive, and it's about time the Vor learned to sink or swim. And he wasn't going to have Petya learn to be a soldier in an artificially weakened environment, he was going to make sure he was measured against the best.

There's no dropping-the-Vor-from-the-name this time around, but there are restrictions on the Vor; Petya and Carl and the other Vor lords aren't supposed to strut around, they aren't allowed to lord it over everyone. This has the unintended consequence of about half of the class not having a clue who Petya is, aside from the vague notion of "Count Vorkosigan's grandson", without an understanding of what that means. Because, hey, if you are a prole working much goddamn harder than these Vor weaklings ever had to, the fuck do you care about the goddamn Who's Who?

So Petya's going off every week to the Residence, but a lot of his class doesn't know, and they don't care. He is very amused at how anonymous he is, which he has never before been in his life. He is subtly encouraging this to See What Happens, and is wondering at which point someone is going to break the "do not talk about your rank" rules and kindly tell everyone that Petya has his own bedroom in the Emperor's house.

In the meanwhile, Petya is convinced that he is just a Terrible Submissive Full Of Terribleness. And because, uh, no, you cannot always get the Emperor's schedule to play nicely, and also trying to fit around other people's schedules doesn't always work, while Petya is usually going weekly to the Residence, sometimes it's just to report to Padma and be all Officially Reassure The Emperor There Is No Treason Going On In The Line Of Succession. Mostly this is just Petya hanging around in Padma's office for an hour or so, putting his feet up on the furniture, talking about classwork and such.

On one such occasion, they get onto the subject of Petya thinking there's something wrong with his submission. Padma's trying to tell him that, hey, you're young, give yourself a break and give yourself some time, and give dominants your age a bit of a break, they're new at this, too. Petya's going "no, you don't understand!!!!!!1111!!!!" Padma tells him flat out there's nothing wrong with him. Petya is unconvinced. Padma offers to roll him. Petya says, sure. 

So Padma rolls him.

Slightly a bit too well.

Padma looks Petya over and then looks at the ground. And Petya drops down to his knees. This is called dropping someone without a word and is considered to be a terrible romantic cliche, or actually impossible and no one should be held to that kind of standard, depending on who you ask.

Padma is sort of freaked out that he did it by accident. This has never happened before. Petya's too fucked out blissed in his head to really notice it.

Padma takes him through the back exit from his private office into a nice sitting room and gets him onto a couch and tries to bring him out of it slowly. How strong a roll goes is mostly a factor of the submissive and their mood. Petya was really receptive to it, and Padma's all "yeah, there is nothing wrong with your submission *at all*." Petya is all blissed out. Padma gets him napping on the couch.

Padma's supposed to have a private dinner with a politician to discuss things, and he has it moved up to the next room over and he leaves the door open so Petya can hear muffled voices if he wakes up, because no way in hell is Padma leaving a submissive alone after being dropped. After dinner, Padma orders food brought up for Petya and goes back to wake him up and make sure he eats.

Petya ends up getting back to the Academy very very late. He goes back to sleep. Two hours later, he and his entire class are woken up for a training exercise.

They're split into three groups and brought to a remote location. They are not told the objective of the exercise. It is, Petya realizes very quickly, Yet Another Civil War exercise. Petya's always disliked those in general, and now it's just pissing him off.

He decides, fuck it. He refuses. He is not playing civil goddamn war less than a day after kneeling for the Emperor.

So he decides to Vorkosigan his way into completely taking over the exercise. This is very barracks lawyer of him, but he doesn't care, no one told him the objective. Fine. He decides the object is To Win. He gets all of the cadets to have the idea that it's the Cadets vs. The Instructors, and this can end either one of two ways: either they're all captured, or the instructors announce the exercise is over.

This training exercise was intended to be three to four days long. Petya gets a lot of support from the cadets once they realize that Petya has plans to react to every single scenario that gets thrown at them and knows how each group is going to be used against the others. This is because they're playing Yuri's civil war, and Petya's group is Yuri. (This is one reason he is really Not Amused at all of this.) Petya's had his entire life to listen to Piotr talking and to figure out how to counter-attack.

Basically, Petya's been training his entire life to fight his grandfather. And now he gets to try those strategies out.

The instructors, of course, have the entire place bugged completely, so they know what's going on. They are going with it, since the whole point of the exercise is to See What Happens and to gauge things like leadership and adaptability and teamwork and stuff.

Since this training scenario was intended to be pretty short, there is very quickly a need to get some goddamn food. So there's stuff going on (they end up stealing all of the instructors's rations) and foraging and such. Petya's basically generalling himself a guerilla war. He has totally been training for this his entire life. He's sharing command with a few others, it's not just him, because different strengths, but Petya is the strategist of the group. See above about submissives. There are certain assumptions at play, and Petya's willing to take them and run.

Eventually, the instructors decide enough already and use the information they have from their bugs to try to end the exercise. Petya and the group are pissed. They destroy the bugs (which they'd known about, but using that information? That's just CHEATING) and then head off into the landscape to keep the mission going.

This is about the time Padma finds out about it. 

When the Academy sends regrets about Petya not coming once, Padma shrugs it off because, hey, training exercise. It's also giving him and Petya a lot of time to think about what happened, which can only be a good thing. But then it's the second week, so Padma has his secretary send an "and when are they expected *back* from this exercise?" query to the Academy.

Who respond back, "we're not sure."

They're letting it play out because they are finding it really fascinating from a training and academics perspective. They offer to end it for Padma, but he says, no, keep it going, just keep me in the loop, and have Petya report to me whenever this thing ends.

Eventually, the problem becomes: they can't use lethal force and that's a problem. If the instructors were allowed to kill the cadets, this would have been over a while ago. But they can't. And Petya and his class are pretty good at playing a waiting game and using their strengths. (It's not the entire class, some have been captured, etc. But it's a lot of them left.)

The Academy comes to Padma and asks for help. Specifically from General Vorkosigan. Padma laughs himself silly over Academy needing help from the General Staff to end a training exercise. The Academy very stiffly points out that if they could just bomb the area, they'd be fine. But they can't, so may we please have General Vorkosigan?

So Piotr, the greatest land-based-combat strategist they have, starts running the instructor's end of this.

The cadets realize quickly that the game has changed and someone new has come on. Petya looks at the strategy and laughs, realizing it's his grandfather. There's a certain mindset when you're fighting on land vs. fighting in space, and the thing with his grandfather's strategies is that they come entirely from experience and assumptions about land-based. Someone who is from a later generation and was trained to also consider space combat just has a different way of looking at things. Piotr has a signature. 

Eventually Piotr is successful and the instructors capture the cadets. Petya wakes up after the stun and groggily asks if the exercise is over. One of the other cadets says there wasn't an announcement, but that's the assumption. Petya says "okay". He's going with that assumption because otherwise, he has to figure out a way out of here. And he'd rather lie back down again.

There is epically long debriefings afterwards. Very epic. The ringleaders get questioned by just about everyone. Petya ends up going before the General Staff to talk strategy.

Once that's all done, all that's left is for Padma to ask Petya what the fuck was going through his head. He also gets Petya to admit that he totally did figure out the actual intended point of the exercise and he barracks-lawyered his way into doing it his way, because... "Why?" Padma asks. And Petya tells him. And then Padma kisses him and asks him to do him the honor of accepting his dominance and Petya says yes.

Padma also tells him that, in his opinion, Petya won the exercise the minute the Academy asked for help. ;)

This exercise had also gone on for a couple of months by that point, completely fucking up the academic schedule. Which is a problem. They eventually decide (they being the Academy brass and Padma) that everyone gets a passing grade and this is in place of the expected final exam, and then it's all just to figure out what the hell to do about what just happened. They couldn't fail everyone for missing the point because of the message that would send to this class and also to the other classes, and it's also the Academy's fault for letting it go on for so long. so everyone just gets "pass" and be done with it. And also they are never running this kind of open-ended choose-your-own-objective training exercise again. Not after everyone's heard about what happened this time.

Padma goes to the Academy and addresses the assembled cadets and tells them what's going on academically and basically makes them highly aware that the Emperor is paying a lot of attention to what's going on here. Then Padma singles out a few of the ringleaders and others by name, congratulating on good stuff they did. One of them finally gets the courage to say that none of this would have happened without Vorkosigan. Padma tells them, very coldly, that he has already discussed Cadet Vorkosigan's actions with him at length.

Because, yeah, that was complete barracks lawyering, Petya, and you know it; you took over an exercise just because you wanted to and didn't want to do what the instructors wanted, and you are in the goddamn line of succession, *you are never doing that again*. And, most importantly, that behavior *from you* cannot be seen to be encouraged.

Petya is all happy and smug and such about this anyway, he knew Padma couldn't tell him publicly he's proud of him for it. Petya was sort of assuming he wasn't going to get out of this with a passing grade, so not having his academic standing torpedoed is a win.

And because these things have consequences, Petya? Sorry, you are growing up to be a headquarters strategist. Sorry if you had other plans. (Petya kind of did, but he really isn't in a position to complain about it.)

Padma then tells Piotr himself about Petya agreeing to be his submissive, which is the point where Piotr, in the course of making sure Padma is not just amusing himself and is actually serious, tells Padma about his epically fucked up relationship with Xav. Which Padma had not known about, and leads to Padma confronting his grandmother to ask what the fuck.

But, okay, Pierre-called-Pete Vorkosigan. Who is not going into the military. He and Petya have discussed at length how they're going to divide up the work so they can each serve the district, but also have time for their own stuff. They go to their strengths, but also so they don't have to do stuff they hate. Pete doesn't like politics, and Petya's good at them, so Petya does it and Pete never has to. That kind of thing.

When Petya tells Pete that he's submitting to Padma (too many P names!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), Pete goes to Padma and tells him flat out, "you're aware of all of the million ways you can break his heart, right?" Padma teases him about trying to threaten harm if his brother is hurt, which is *adorable*, Pete, really cute. Pete's all "no, no, missing the point! I just need to know that you're aware that you could tear his heart out of his chest and stomp all over it!" Padma assures him that he is aware of it, thank you, and will endeavor not to do so.

Pete and Padma, Padma has pointed out, are a great example of how dominants are different and have different ways of being dominant, so, seriously, Petya, there was never anything wrong with your submission, you were just not submitting to the right kind of dominant, the world does not revolve around your sexual crises.

But whatever. Pete's sleeping with Pierre Vorrutyer, which is kind of adorable and sweet. Pierre's head is in inventing things, but he doesn't think too much about applications or about anything other than "oooooh, good idea! I must try that!" and he has a lot going on. Pete thinks that's really attractive. Gigantic brains are a turn-on! He is not trying to change Pierre! So he's okay with Pierre stopping things because he had a great idea during sex. But he's a very gentle touch dominant and keeping Pierre grounded and their relationship is adorable.

Pete's very into finance and, as the only Vorkosigan not on active duty, he's extremely involved in running the district. He brings Pierre along with him and Petya when they're doing Vorkosigan stuff, telling people it's for Vor reasons, but it's really because Pierre's going to be Count Vorrutyer eventually and he needs to learn how to do this, and doing it with your favorite cousins is a lot less scary than doing it For Real in your own district.

Carl and Arina Vorhalas comes along on some of these and a few other of their friends, which of course results in Vor stuff happening. But it's kind of secondary to Pete being A Good Boyfriend and helping his submissive.

Petya does end up doomed to the life of a headquarters strategist, which is much less exciting than it sounds. Aral's, like, running the entire Navy in this 'verse. No Komarr invasion, but, fuck it, he's Aral Vorkosigan. You know. Just with a messy and public divorce instead of rumors he killed his wife.

Petya ends up arranged-married to Alys, which suits everyone very well. Alys is publicly Kareen's submissive, but Petya is not publicly Padma's. After a few years, it becomes an open secret, but Padma won't publicly acknowledge him because that'd fuck him over if they ever broke up.

They do, naturally, break up. Padma does something Imperial and doesn't tell Petya about it first. He is, he will forever insist, *not wrong*. Petya says *that's the entire goddamn problem*. Because since he wasn't wrong, he will certainly do it again, and then Petya will only have himself to blame for his heart getting broken all over again, and also, this is such a serious betrayal of trust and indicates that his dominant doesn't trust him, and so all of the pretty things Padma's told him about dominants and dominance are all just lies, and just crying in my head about this much too loudly. Padma thinks this is all bullshit, he was completely right in what he did, he was not going to break secrecy, and also, he wasn't wrong. Petya agrees that it wasn't wrong for the Emperor to do, but it was wrong for his dominant not to warn him it was happening, and there's no way to have a conversation with his dominant without having one with his Emperor, and he can't have this conversation with his Emperor, because he's not allowed to punch him.

In lieu of punching him, Petya returns the collar instead and asks to be dismissed.

And then cries himself to sleep for a while.

Padma really can't initiate contact since the entire argument was over the Emperor doing things a dominant shouldn't have, and the Emperor summoning Petya to talk about this would be such a terrible, terrible idea. Pete does come over to be all "whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy" at him, pointing out that Petya would go back to him in a heartbeat if he just apologized. Padma insists, again, that he wasn't wrong.

Petya's next day at HQ is kind of absurd, because everyone can tell he doesn't have a collar anymore, but Petya has always been careful to never say who his dominant is and everyone respects that. So it's a hot topic of gossip, but while being wary of actually asking him anything. (This is one of those places where the balance is firmly dominants-have-privilege: it's fine and accepted for dominants to say who their submissives are, because that's saying who obeys their orders, but if submissives say who their dominants are, that's saying who's orders they obey. So if your dominant is lower ranked than you are, or is, gasp, not an officer, people might talk. People are trying to change this, but, you know, double standards.) One of his friends does end up getting a partial story from him, with Petya admitting completely that he was the one who broke it off, but, well, that was because his dominant made it clear he didn't trust him, so fuck it, and also, his dominant is not going to have any problems finding a new submissive, but for Petya, this is going to take some time, so give me some space, yeah?

Which results in the ImpSec guy watching, who doesn't know who Petya's dominant was, passing the recording up the chain of command. Because, you know, Lord Piotr Vorkosigan being single again after a very bitter break-up is important information.

Anyway, they do get back together again after Petya is in a cave-in at a site in the district and has some time to think waiting for rescue and realizes that he'd rather risk having his heart broken again than risk not daring. Because he won't be a coward, he refuses to be a coward.

Padma does end up apologizing, sort of. But he still insists he was right. (Petya points out, again, that him being right to do it *was the actual problem*. And also, no one else has this problem who isn't sleeping with the Emperor. Get over it.)

So, Petya and Alys are married and are happily having children and hanging out a lot at the Residence and being involved in Padma and Kareen's many children.

Pete is a student at University of Vorbarr Sultana. And he wants to date a prole girl. Her nickname is Pip, but I am refusing, I have decided. Too many P names.

Pete, being that he's in the Imperial line of succession but not in the countship line, needs Padma's permission to get married, but doesn't actually need Piotr's. Which is good, because he suspects he wouldn't get it. Before he even asks the girl out on a date, he runs it by Padma and gets his permission. He also tells Aral and Petya and gets their okay. Because there's no damn point in pushing off being told that he's not actually allowed to get married, or that his family Disapproves (he'll tell Piotr later and, hey, Piotr's old! Getting Aral's blessing is much more important). So he gets that permission first and then starts to date her.

There is epic hilarity when he meets her family. Her father wants to know his intentions and basically assumes that Pip's the kind of girl the Vor will date, but not marry. Pete very clear that he is damn serious. And, also, if Piotr disowned him? It would be harder on Piotr than on Pete because of how involved Pete is in the district, and also, if Pete was no longer a member of House Vorkosigan... Pete's a junior prince. He's got rank, thanks. And Xav made his will carefully to ensure that all of his descendants had inheritances in their own names; Piotr can't touch anything Pete has from Xav, and Xav was careful about second sons and providing for them, especially someone who, if sufficiently annoyed and/or desperate, could stake a claim to the throne.

Pete is careful about introducing her to his family, because he so much does not want to scare her off, but doesn't want her to think he's treating her with kid gloves and doesn't respect her and all. When he's sure that she's not going to run, he asks Padma if he could find some time in his schedule for Pete to introduce his girlfriend to The Rest Of The Family, aka the actually scary ones.

The *next day*, Pete takes her into the district to show her a few things there and says, "oh, yeah, we might run into Petya, he mentioned he'd be around." At the first stop, uh, yeah, they run into Petya. There's a lot of security hanging around and Pete gets a bad feeling about this. They head in and meet Petya and Ivan.

Ivan says, "Uncle Petya's showing me around!"

Pete calls bullshit. Petya smiles. Pete says "we're coming to dinner?" "Lunch, actually," Petya says. Then he explains, "Vorwhoever blinked." There was going to be a council session, but Vorwhoever retracted his petition when he realized it was going to fail epically, so there was magically a hole in the Emperor's schedule. Holes in the Emperor's schedule do not stay empty for very long. Since Pete had asked for an audience, he got shoved in when there was suddenly a vacancy.

So Pete introduces Ivan to his girlfriend. Which is formal and properly proper all the way through until the end, where he goes "Pip, my cousin Ivan." Ivan laughs and is very charming and princely and trying to find out ALL THE DETAILS. Because everyone in the family has been very insistent that, no, a Vor prince marrying a prole? That's not revolutionary, XAV ALREADY DID THAT, THANKS. (If they keep saying that, the hope is no one will argue.) And Ivan wants to know all about the woman who keeps getting compared to his Gran.

Ivan's submissive and is all confused about that, because he worries that he won't be allowed to have a dominant, because the Emperor can't have someone giving him orders. He's trying to find his place, because Padma's giving him a lot more freedom than Padma had at his age, but also, Ivan has a lot less freedom than his younger siblings do. So it's all trying to find a balance and figure out just what a prince's life is like in this new Barrayar, because it's been a while since an Emperor had a lot of children and there was an assumption it would be a while before anyone would inherit anything.

Ivan does figure out that he likes numbers and such, so he and Pete bond over that. And Ivan is very close to Petya, because Petya's an authority-ish figure and big brother type who's also a submissive and also is going to end up running things one day. Ivan figures it's a good thing Petya is submitting to the Emperor, because no one can argue with a count doing that. But it's different when it's the Emperor. This worries him. 

Anyway, Pip meets The Imperial Family and it all goes well, and Pete goes off with Padma to formally ask his permission and gets it. And then later he proposes to Pip, and she accepts, and then they discuss expectations and stuff like that, because Pete's been warned that, uh, yeah, you're a Vorkosigan, you swallow things up. (His mother has certain bitter views on that.) So they talk about it, and Pete's all very careful to try to make clear that Petya and Alys and are Petya and Alys, and they are both very political and happily political together and doing all of that, and Alys is in many ways doing Countess Vorkosigan's job, and that is not Pete's expectations of Pip at all, because Pete's not Petya and he isn't looking for that, and etc.

And Ivan's younger siblings are all paying very close attention to this, because this is the first love match in the family since Xav and his wife, and can Pete manage to actually have a private life? Will he epically fail and have a worse divorce than his parents? This is cause for much speculation. (Ivan doesn't have much hope that he'll have a love match; Padma's rather unenthusiastic when he brings it up. "Well, if you find someone suitable, I don't see why not," is basically how it goes. Ivan reflects bitterly that Padma had it so very easy: he and Kareen were betrothed since they were kids and they grew up together and they get along very well, and then he picked Petya as his submissive. There is no risk at all here. And meanwhile, unless Ivan wants to do the same thing and pick from a very, very small pool of people he has known his entire life, he's going to have to take relationship risks that Padma can't understand.)

(Padma and Ivan do talk about that kind of thing, Padma is trying to be a Good Father without really knowing how to be, and he has no idea how to give advice to a submissive about how to find a dominant, which is one reason Padma really encourages Ivan to talk to Petya about such things. Padma points out to Ivan the advantages in someone like Petya, who is not scared of him or the repercussions of a relationship. Ivan, in turn, points out that it was all fine for Padma to do it, but it's not like Ivan can repeat it, the situations are completely different, WHY DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND.)

So, yeah, Pete's introducing new people into this world, which has its sparks. Pip has her own career, which is shocking. Also, Piotr doesn't try to make too big of a fuss about it all, which is even more shocking. Padma essentially told him "Don't. Just. Don't."

It turns out that not acknowledging Petya as his submissive is causing a lot of headaches because it gives the impression that there's something secretive or shameful about it. Petya has a lot of dominants hit on him, telling him that they'd stand by him and not keep him hidden, and you certainly deserve that. And Padma has submissives telling him how they'll be so awesome that he'll totally want to admit publicly he's sleeping with him. It eventually gets to the point where not acknowledging it is more of an issue than doing it. 

They decide to publicly acknowledge it after Petya takes retirement at his twenty, so they can try to spin it that they were keeping it quiet out of concern for Petya getting Even More Nepotism.

Padma also goes through a lot of Dorca's things very carefully to try to find some advice to give to Ivan, and ends up finding a lot of Dorca and Pierre's sex letters to each other, because, hey, when you're fighting a civil war to bring a planet under your heal, there is no better time to be having letter sex. It's really explicit. So not that helpful for Ivan, unless he's looking for sex tips.

 

...It's absurd to call this something I am Not Writing when this who-needs-sleep summary is 6-effing-K words, isn't it?


	8. Bond!Barrayar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted in comments: http://lannamichaels.livejournal.com/760619.html

[](http://avanti-90.livejournal.com/profile)[**avanti_90**](http://avanti-90.livejournal.com/): James Bond on Barrayar.

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FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION THIS. Because today I have sort of been plotting Guy and Simon go on ADVENTURES. Naturally, because this is something I was working through while bored and to amuse myself, it's Padma as Emperor, Petya's been sent on a secret mission for which he gets to hang out in the boondocks and act like he's been unofficially kicked out of society to cool his heels for a while, while he's really investigating. Simon's sent to provide support, but Petya's all "prove to me you're ImpSec" and doesn't trust him. Then Guy's sent in as backup and Petya's like "oh, okay", but, yeah, he doesn't exactly completely trust either of them, but that's okay, because ImpSec understands needs-to-know, although Simon is a little bemused by all of this and is wondering what the hell is going on. Petya's just "this is a family matter", but eventually, because there are things they need to know, says he's looking for a kid, somewhere between age five and six. Guy asks who the kid is, and Petya's very much "you do not need to know this". Simon and Guy both get the very strong impression that it's Padma's bastard son that somehow happened and this is damage control.

Of course, because I am me and this is what happens in my brain, Simon and Guy want to get into some event thing, and Petya's trying to figure out the best way to do it, and eventually he figures that the only good way that won't cause serious problems or break the cover is to contribute to the cover by bringing his boyfriend, and he tells Simon and Guy that it might be better if it's Simon, just, uh, because, um, Guy, your father might strangle me once this gets to the capital (because of backstory for this 'verse, Guy's father ends up being one of Padma's armsmen. It's a long story full of armsmen deciding to betray Yuri and the resultant problems). Because it's going to get back to the capital, of course, such scandalous behavior, but it's not like Petya can outright order Simon to do this.

So Simon gets to be pretend!boyfriend to Petya. Who is a perfect gentleman about it, but very forced and all, because he's trying not to let on how much he would like to not be pretend boyfriends.

And it eventually turns out when they find out that, nope, it's not Padma's bastard son, it's his _illegal clone_. Guy actually turns Simon around, saying, you do not get to see this.

But they get the clone to safety and then back to the capital and Padma has to decide what he's going to *do* with this kid. And meanwhile Simon is basically in love with Petya. And there might be a threesome with Guy, I haven't gotten anywhere near that far.

(They give the kid handwavy magic bodysculpt surgery whatever and then Petya takes him off to a different planet and has him discretely adopted and the only people who know where he ends up are Padma and Petya, because some shit is just not for ImpSec records.) (And then Padma has to finally get around to rewriting the law of succession to make it clear that unauthorized clones are considered ineligible.)

 

As for what actual!James Bond would do on Barrayar, I don't know. Probably depends on the time period. Since he's so gun-focused, it's probably post-TOI, but I think he would work best during the TOI. All that in-fighting and plotting and such.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted http://lannamichaels.tumblr.com/post/94301738880/id-like-you-to-write-that-vorkosigan-district-ag

> Ask from cosmictuesdays: I'd like you to write that 'Vorkosigan District Ag School' fic, where one of the mountain kids gets schlepped to the city to Get An Education. 

* * *

So I was just thinking about the armsmen and all, and then I started thinking about CLONE GREGOR VORBARRA AGAIN. Except this time he’s not a clone, he’s Gregor Vorbarra who got left with the Esterhazys when the war went in the other direction and Aral never brought Gregor back from the District, so Gregor grew up in the mountains. And he was five at the time, so, old enough to know who he was, but it’s so ingrained in himself that he has to hide, that he can’t tell anyone, and honestly his memory of being Emperor are things like his Grandfather dying, getting pulled away from his mommy, and watching Negri die in front of him. So he’s just about as traumatized as canon!Gregor is, except that this Gregor knows he’ll be executed if anyone finds out who he is, because, idk, Vordarian is Emperor, or someone else got it in the civil war. So Gregor isn’t sure if he should be trying to AVENGE HIS MOTHER TAKE BACK HIS BIRTHRIGHT or just keep his head down and survive and not have everyone’s sacrifice be in vain.

And Piotr’s definitely dead by this point, and Aral got killed in the war, and if Aral lost the war, there is just no way Miles is around (best case: Cordelia survived, took Miles, and ran to safety.). So whoever is in charge of Vorkosigan’s District, I couldn’t begin to tell you. Maybe one of those third cousins or something. But the point is, it’s even poorer than in canon, because it doesn’t have the Lord Regent around to help out.

And Gregor hasn’t gotten much in the way of education, but he’s a smart kid, and he’s quiet and smart and *driven*, and he’s never quite Fit In in the village because he’s obviously not Esterhazy’s bio-kid, he must be Piotr or Aral’s bastard on their former armsman’s wife, what a scandal. So they figure, let’s send Gregor out to get an education.

So Gregor finds himself in Hassadar, getting an education. AND THERE ARE SHENANIGANS because for some reason, some people are thinking that because Piotr gave Gregor to Esterhazy to take care of, that’s implicitly acknowledging him as his bastard, and there’s, like, this entire *network* of Piotr’s Bastards in the district, and meanwhile Gregor’s just trying not to be KILLED FOR BEING THE EMPEROR.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted http://lannamichaels.tumblr.com/post/94337960690/id-like-to-see-your-version-of-ladies-finally-allowed

> Ask from professorofeljay: I'd like to see your version of Ladies Finally Allowed in the Barrayaran military or Countesses on the Council or Ruling Empress Vorbarra 

* * *

okay, so, I’ve done a tiny bit already with the first with Helen Natalia being in the service and having Adventures with the Crown Prince (who I need a name for, like, a lot. Not as much as I need a name for Aral’s first wife, but I don’t need anything in this series more than I need a name for Aral’s first wife), and so I imagine that’s just one of those things that has been on Gregor’s agenda and he finally got it done.

Because it’s not like women haven’t been fighting in the wars, it’s just now official that they’re to be treated like the dudes, promoted the same way, put in charge of men, etc. They went through this a handwave amount of time ago when they started promoting non-Vor over Vor (there was an Admiral during Ezar’s day, Gregor would be *at least* in his 40s when this happens, so there’s been enough time for the people making the decisions to have forgotten what it was like the last time they did something like this), and I think there will be similar repercussions.

But, well. One thing I’ve been interested in with Vorkosigan is the way things are governed on the planetary scale and the issue of the legislature. One pet theory is that Gregor is going to re-institute the Komarran Senate at some point. Sergyar needs its own official local government that’s not just the Viceroy (it may already have it, we don’t know). And right now on Barrayar, 75 people have voting power (74 if you don’t count the Emperor).

And if the reason to single out the Vor was The Vor Are Officers and the Vor Are Service And All That, that’s just fundamentally untrue anymore, if it ever was true. (It was never true.)

So I’m just really interested in the way things go. But you aren’t getting Countesses with voting power unless you radically change everything OR we go back to saying “this woman is a man for legal purposes”, which already happened (it’s one of Dono’s precedents). But that’s a woman as a Count, not a Countess.

So even if we say that Gregor’s a girl… she’d probably have a younger brother. But let’s say she doesn’t. — Well, she probably gets married off to Ivan.

I mean, maybe we say generally, the dudes are off fighting the wars, the women are running the shit, so it just makes more sense to have women actually doing all the governing and legislating, so the men can keep poking each other with swords. Why not. In which case we’d have shared power between the Emperor and the Empress, and the ability of the Empress to adminstrate and govern and form consensus is the most important thing. So you’d have the Counts and all forming the military, while the Countesses are sitting in the Council.

This makes “who marries who” EVEN MORE IMPORTANT, because if we assume that the Countesses are the ones who mostly run the Districts while the Counts are fighting anyway, but now they hold the vote themselves. Because votes were mostly patriarchal decent, but now they’re married in. So if the Vorsoandsos have five daughters and marry them to five Counts, that is now 5 votes held by the daughters and one by the mother.

This would probably have a pretty good impact on the sex-selection ratios for births once they got that technology, because a daughter means your family or faction could get another vote somewhere. (With a maximum limit of 60, 59 if you don’t count the Empress.)

Which is why I don’t really see this as being the Countesses-as-in-woman-married-to-the-Count, I see this as being the Count’s sister. Or the Count’s daughter. Or the count’s aunt or niece or cousin or anything who grew up as $house and holds the vote. It’s possible they’d have to remain unmarried, or marry someone who doesn’t have any chance of ever becoming Count and is willing to change their name and go to live in the woman’s district.

You could also take this further and have it be a matriarchy, that would work, too.


End file.
